Johnboatfishing

With the structure complete, it was time to flip it upside down so I could start on the outer hull.

To put the hull panels on, the frame would need to be flipped upside down. Had some odds and ends to take care beforehand though. Plus, still moving content from Youtube.

This is the third video showing how I attached the poling platform support structure to the stern and the other two parts at the outboard corners of the bow!

Having issues uploading video thumbnails. Any suggestions? Now for the video description: Here in part 2, I show you how I solved the problem of how to secure the structural part I was trying to bond in place after it refused to let me put a clamp on it!!

I recorded the entire process of bonding in those pieces at the outboard corners of the bow and the poling platform structure back at the stern. But.....but it made for a nearly hour long video. So it's divided into at three separate videos. Parts 2 and 3 will follow.

Made a small change to the bow that would not only help it cosmetically, it would also ease the installation of the side panels later on down the road.

I got bogged down just a little on some of the smaller parts I had to make and attach to the boat. But they're all necessary, even if it's time consuming.

Yes, I do plan to install a poling platform on this boat. The structure has to be able to support it.

Finally! How many times have I talked about getting the ribs bonded in? Enough talk, time to get it done! Also, at this point, a lot of my video run times were in excess of 20 minutes. Bear with me. It took me a while to figure out that it's best to keep the run times down around 12 - 16 minutes. Easier to edit, quicker to upload.

I had to add some additional parts to the bow section that were not included in my original drawings. Sometimes things come up that you didn't foresee. But it's those little details that often make a world of difference.

Cutting the slots in the ribs where they lock into the stringers. Tedious to say the least. But someone has to do it! With that done, cutting the lightening holes will be next on the to do list!

I was never completely satisfied with the way the stern looked. This change will help a bunch!

Try as I might, I could not shorten the length of this video anymore. It was almost 40 minutes long before editing. But, I wanted to provide viewers with a little more detailed info on the progress of the skiff build, and that translated to a longer run time.

One thing you can count on in Texas is that the weather will change from one week to the next! The snow is gone, life is good! Boat build time is here again!

Got the holes bored in the ribs before the weather shut me down. We had a minus 1 degree forecast for President's Day in 2021 in Fort Worth! Who left the deep freeze open? Also, still moving content from YT. After looking at other platforms, I found them to be lacking and Rumble, in my humble opinion, is the best alternative to YT that I have found. So Rumble gets my vote.

Things don't always go as planned!

Fishing footage on a fishing channel, imagine that! Well, let's just say, it was almost fishing footage!

When it gets below a certain temperature, you can't bond parts with epoxy, per the epoxy manufacturer's instructions. So all I could do was wait. While I waited, I went down to the pond by my house and found it frozen solid! People were walking on it, and that's something I've never seen in Texas!

So, what do you do when the cold weather shuts down your boat build? Build a sled! Visibility was down to less than a 100 yards at one point that afternoon, near whiteout conditions! This ain't Fairbanks Alaska, it's Fort Worth, as in TEXAS!

In this video, I finish cutting out the remaining ribs, but they were far from done. Still had more to do to them to get them ready to install.

Because of the continual changes to deadrise angles and the overall shape of the hull, each rib had to be slightly different and was measured and cut one at a time.

At this point, I had the stringers and bulkhead bonded in place. Still had to fab more ribs.

Despite the cold weather at the time, I was able to start bonding parts together.

The keel and stringers were ready to bond in at this point, but it was still too cold for the epoxy. This was also about the time I started looking for ways to make small improvements to my videos, so I started experimenting with the photo editing program on my computer to create thumbnails for the videos. The first few were quite crude!

As I recall, it got really cold around the time I recorded this, so any epoxy work that needed to be done was on hold. The keel and stringers were still in the finishing stages, and were almost but not quite ready to be bonded in place.